democratic convention. there is people who said they were very certain and that is slipped to romney have an advantage now. you start to see democrats, african-americans, latinos get excited after tonight's debate. >> the debate opened on a very fast pace. martha raddatz was not going to be jim lehrer and they started with an obvious vulnerability for the administration, which is benghazi. they had a very sharp exchange. and then not, one of ryan's soundbites of the night came out, which was the foreign policy is unraveling. i think where the clip of that exchange. flesh academy can talk about it. >> is this a massive intelligence failure, vice president i? >> it was a tragedy, martha appeared chris stevens was one of the best. i can make two commitments to

you. one, we will find and bring to justice the men who did this. and secondly, we will get to the bottom of it. wherever the facts lead us, we'll make clear to the american public. whatever mistakes i made will not be made again. when you look in president, martha, it seems to me should look at his most important responsibility. that is caring for the national security of the country in the best ways to look at how he handled the issues of the day. >> congressman ryan. >> weimar in the last of these four americans who were murdered. when you take a look at what has happened in the last few weeks, and they sent the u.n. ambassador got to say that this is because of a protest and youtube video. it took the president two weeks to acknowledge that this is a terrorist attack. he went to the u.n. and in his speech, he said six times he talked about the youtube video. look, if we are hit by

terrorists, will call up what it is, a terrorist attack. our ambassador in paris has a marine detachment regarding him. should we have it very detachment regarding our benghazi, please renew there was an al qaeda with arms? this is becoming more troubling by the day. >> all right. rachel, who won that exchange quick >> one thing who won the debate and i think that was martha raddatz. a very aggressive moderator. didn't interrupt, but kept them on point impressed both of them hard. he pressed trying very hard on his budget numbers and tax plan and doesn't not work? does this add up? triggered by repeatedly from her. the interesting thing is the question of optics we were talking about before. there's also the question of how ryan's performance will play. it is a presidential?

did that experience did not get comfortable enough on that stage? >> he was commonplace and that's what people wanted an obviously was rehearsed in taste. if he did put in that romney did on monday at the foreign policy institute, which was to take libya and pivot to a broader critiques of foreign policy, just as biden pivoted because it's a weakness getting out of iraq and afghanistan. >> biden seemed prepared to come back with the issue of funding for the security. they knew he was going to get attacked on security and had his answer right away, which was he wanted us, you cut the team. it was a good job of him expecting. in terms of this clip, we saw both sides anticipating this discussion. they both have a question was going to come. it came first and they both had answers. i think it got much deeper and policy discussion when both

sides were prepared. i don't think anyone expected to have this much of a foreign policy debate tonight. >> began, given the background of the moderator, that's not surprising. >> it was supposed to be half-and-half. you think it was half-and-half? >> made a little more the foreign policy side. i'm surprised how much came in given that the election campaign so far is mostly about domestic issues. >> the one dish that wasn't shown on the clip was appointed pressed repeatedly that governor romney had a press conference in the middle of the crisis before he knew all the facts to condemn the way the administration handled it. and i never took it back. i thought there was a good point here dataflow. >> is something us at that press conference that they. that romney really got pressed onto melissa jumping the gun, moving too fast? ryan gave the exact same response that day, that any time

there's some and going on, it's fine to question it. at the time it was damaging for romney and his sort of gotten lost in the foreign policy discussions. >> the administration's response and whether their story default and why did they react? biden reminded viewers, so did the other guys. >> we are going to go back to danville. are you there? there they are. >> thank you very much. we are at center college in danville, kentucky. behind us, a dozen officials. talking about why their guy was fantastic. the main points the obama folks are making is that vice president biden was better on specifics, facts. but they say about paul ryan is the point the talking points

generalities. >> we just talked to a lot of folks commit getting a lot of e-mails. they were certainly different part where paul ryan did feel like he was just reading back something he'd memorized for this moment. the truth is when you are this huge scene, that's what you're doing. >> i don't know how much people will hold that against him. obviously he helped himself well. most questions he answered with enough specificity. he said they passed, just past the threshold of appearing like he could do the job if you ever had to step in. >> there was an enormous gap in substance and specificity. the gap between joe biden and paul ride in. from the defense budget attack, every single one of those it was like biden came ready to rall with lots and lots of nitty-gritty details. it never refrain, particularly the beginning was you like him you like him to you by. he didn't use those words, but

that is what malarkey means. >> a lot of people at home, too heavy-handed. that's the thing is the audience is not washington think tank people, not fact checkers. people at home have been casually watching this and i also got a lot of e-mails and some twitter traffic about biden interrupt the martha raddatz as well. >> i have to be honest, i don't have to read the analysis. someone else will. >> i would have a tough time writing the analysis. unlike any other debate i covered, i don't know how people will interpret joe biden. as the interpretation that will happen with the specificity and facial expressions come in the jack-o'-lantern talk about, the praying athe heavens. the people say that it's real passion, joe bean show, or is it condescending, too emotional?

to defeat us as too defensive? back here talking to reporters about the conventional wisdom is joe biden cleaned his clock. he was so specific. >> there's no doubt reporters think that. i'm just not sure that your average person will plague my mom, my dad, some in season at home felt that way about paul ryan, felt that way about joe biden. we were watching a coffee shop, on the tv monitor. and you could say wow, these facial expressions are damaging. elaborate why. >> it was so distracting and you don't want something that noticeable. we are just talked to someone in the hall. the people haul said he would do it all the time. we are watched it on a split screen. one thing that we hear a lot on e-mails and twitter is that showed biden's made missions was

to calm down the left, calm down progressives. they were so unhappy of the first debate with a clear win, democrats happy about what he did. but how did he do with independence? how did he do with women? that is less clear. definitely ryan would've been the more appealing, somebody was just watching. >> there's 26 days left. between the performance we saw from a bombing last debate, simply joe biden, the bases are there, fired up. they hate the other side. there was sent out that both will be motivated to get out in though. i think a 6% to 10%. you look at every poll, seven states are still authentically coin tosses. in the seven states, howl of a six undecided interpret joe

biden? >> that was a mistake by biden because i just got an e-mail from a top bush guy who said it's a little day to send in your vp to fire up your base. so he did do that, mission accomplished there. but with a 6% or 7%, hard to see that. let's talk about the moments we might see clips of. one of paul ryan scrape almonds was when the vice president tried to call them out on the 47%. he said joe biden, you know of all people that your words don't exactly all come out the way you expect them to. we heard a very interesting reaction inside. >> inside the hall it was the point -- >> right after that. >> he came back with that. and he said when i see something they name unit. >> meeting someone in the hall told us there was a gasp among the democrats. >> were going to keep talking to

people and come back. we're going to throw it over to harass and ruslan. john, what he thought? >> welcome back here. jim come you can hear us now? we've got that deliver up. let me ask? >> i've been watching your discussion and clearly your guys take on the debate is similar to the one we had here in one respect. this is largely about biden. we put off by his aggressiveness or did you like the way you carry the fight on behalf of democrats? how much does this even a matter for paul ryan? it seems to me that he did at best a possible performance. he didn't have any big mistakes. he didn't embarrass himself on the stage. but he really didn't do anything positive to help his own reputation or help the case of his ticket. you know, you are somebody watching paul ran for many

years. i'd be curious of your take on it. >> john, i agree. unless you are paul ran groupie, there's no way you can say this is a fabulous performance. your definition of it being a passable performance is probably an accurate one. i think he showed flashes of what people like about paul ran, particularly talking about the budget. and he saw flashes of real wobbliness. in the beginning of the debate was about foreign policy, it there was a lot of talking points. it was clear he burst a few lines and try to deliver them. at that it was overshadowed on foreign relations committee for more than a decade. he had expertise for paul ryan simply does not have. >> i don't think people will come away saying paul ryan is the second coming. he came off as a confident, detail oriented plausible

president. i think you just cleared that. >> that's the definition of what schumacher and number two. >> we are differing. john was asking this question about was a passable or strong performance? you and i were disagreeing a little bit. >> he was possible. i saw most you can hope for. he starts rushing. if i'd been prepping them, how would i feel? he didn't house any groups. >> to push her on the spot, what did we were right when there was an okay jerry, almost a situation when there is a focus group. you want to hear breakout people

who don't have the same screw loose tummy about the analysis and the thinking right now of what's right. >> in terms of reality, what does the public actually think. these are frustrating because we never really get for 48 hours, until 48 hours what people really thought, where we get the first wave of people like us. those tend to be impressionistic reactions rather than substantive ones. and we get instant polls, which are very dubious reliability. i think we do see a consensus, and our newsroom and i would surprise in many other newsrooms you do see this debate was fundamentally about joe biden. paul ryan was playing the role of the washington generals out there. the team that loss, the harlem globetrotters. this is good biden versus bad

biden. good biden was actually in command, very aggressive in trying to get every vulnerability, including take advantage of the democrats were frustrated and president obama didn't take advantage in denver. and also what you guys have been talking about. was it just simply to distract them, to a nine, two discourteous? has smiles, interruptions. >> either way, that's a lot of headline tamara would be biden versus biden. you've covered joe biden in the senate and you've certainly covered him as part of the white house. was this unusual? obviously is a passionate guy, but this level of facial expression was almost a constant 90 minute stream of expression. >> it was interesting you were there. we just talked to someone close to the vice president, and we'll go back and check those, but

said his facial expressions during the vice presidential debate last time were very similar the whole time. i'm thinking to myself, really? so why didn't you coach them about the split screen click >> i don't buy that. >> i predict his facial expressions are the al gore says in 2012. >> they're going to be the al gore size of 2012? >> we are to have a story up. soon to be oppressed whether this is his allegory mode. >> it's not often we get to be mike allen. everyone so i would treasure the treasure these moments. >> this is interesting. all of the analysis last week said barack obama didn't show up. we're not saying that tonight. we are saying that biden showed up a little too much. yet a job to do when he got out there and he did it. now all of a sudden we are all

criticizing him for showing up. that is kind of what is happening here. >> what i would say lewises joe biden at its best is effective because he comes across as somebody who understands average voters, comes from a background and has committed his life to representing and fighting for people of similar background. in other words, authentic. when he lays it on tuesday, he loses on the two city it seems very political. i said before the at times this debate seemed like foghorn leghorn versus duty house or i really think that's true. both people up there seem kind of artificial in some ways. and joe biden at his best is genuine. joe biden blame it on too thick. >> we were discussing earlier the stories paul ryan was telling, not really a strong suit of the personal stories here they are happening often.

the afghanistan question about the reservists. the delay that on to pick when he was trying to get into the personal stories? >> again, we are all responding with her own impressions, but to me that felt very political, very contrived. insert personal anecdote here. i suppose it's a matter of taste. >> which it was st. thomas one of those things where washington perspective might not necessarily match what people will take away from the debate. >> i think people in peoria can recognize a talking point. >> 95% of the debate was a clearly rehearsed talking point. all the questions he got were predictable and the answers were practice. >> jim, the lightness. even here >> guest: back-and-forth on this question. >> the one thing i want to add on this as i think this is a missed opportunity in some respects with the american people in that i really thought the paul ryan would come to play

with more specificity. i thought the american people would finally get a glimpse of what i think are pretty darn big choices in this election, between one heavy on government when it comes to medicare, medicaid, the obama health care plan and one that talks about really injecting private competition. undoubtably in the medicare, undoubtedly into health care. i talked about slowing the rate of growth by medicaid in turning over the control to the states. these are huge issues. these are big, big issues and i feel once again if you are a voter, is 26 days out. feels like the campaign really hasn't begun if you're trying to figure out, who do i vote for? >> let me ask you -- >> hologram to govern? >> you been watching paul ran for 10, 15 years now and know him pretty well. to think this is a matter of him being over coached? at times you can almost read it in the facial expressions.

don't screw up any names in afghanistan. make sure you seem credible on this or that policy, many of which he hasn't been immersed in heavily in the house. the coaching may have inhibited talking about the things he does feel passion about and is informed about some of the spending and entitlement issues. >> i think you two sets of handcuffs. once on foreign policy that you just described. it's not his expertise. he clearly has specific regions, specific militant group said he wanted to discuss to show he has a command of the facts. the other set of handcuffs or mitt romney. romney does not want a big battle, a big bold idea. he doesn't want to get into the specifics of restructuring medicare, making tough choices on spending to drive down the deficit, to get into a battle about what it would mean if you

slow the rate of growth in turnover to the states. so here's a guide by trading for 1015 years has added a think tank, we he can wage a specific debate. right now, joe biden have said it before off-camera. he respects paul ryan. barack obama walked away saying you know what? i like this guy because i don't agree with him, but he has a command of the issues. >> he did see that tonight and that's why i agree with john a little more than i agree with you. it was only a passable performance. the possible might be enough. he would've got so much street crowd by doing a little tiny bit because this is already some anti-obama has been hammering romney on. this is a place where he could have helped mitt romney and himself. they've talked about do you want to find.

maybe another missed opportunity. until that began, we were talking about what is being said. face president -- >> i am baffled about the republican ticket. i think they're a little spooked because of the 47%, and been caught on tape. but why they have a bridge to fight about the size of government. half of the country receiving government assistance in some shape or form. if you look at 20, 30 years ago, is almost twice the percentage. the government is growing. that to me is the fundamental question were facing as a country. you just don't get that much and i don't fully understand why. >> this question of missed opportunities. >> mike, let me get some of these guys in on this question of missed opportunities.

talking about what they thought were the great missed opportunities. you have been in your mind? i've got a good candidate in mind, but i'm curious what she won't think. >> i think he had a missed opportunity on his own budget. i didn't feel like he did enough to defend it. it's his own budget, his numbers. and i felt like biden got the best of him on it. >> i agree. i think he talked in the broadsword picture. i also think cannot question where they asked, what are you going to do for the middle class? biden went on the attack. we heard a lot of lines from biden. when ryan came back, and that is given its own answer, he spent the whole time to send being. we heard them talk about what a great guy romulus and how he helped these people a christmas who had been in a car accident and he didn't give his own answer. i thought he could have said this is overdoing.

>> biden came off as a guy who'd been in the senate for 40 years. ryan did want to talk about his experience because the romney ticket is trying to run as outsiders. he came off like two d. hauser, the guy trying to get into washington, when in fact he's been here for 14 years. >> my candidate for missed opportunities is in the vice president was hectoring paul ryan about you guys take responsibility. what are you responsibility? paul ryan could've said we've tried to take responsibility. we tried to get a major budget deal past, but the president moved the goalpost or the president was unwilling to leave. >> well, i go back to how we started this conversation. i felt during the whole debate on substance anyway, paul ryan was treading water. he just didn't want to make a mistake. he had a lot of soundbites. >> but what i am concerned about -- not concerned about, but what i'm curious about is

how the viewer the voter will see that on some of these quickie polls, they are coming out a little closer than i would've thought. i would've thought biden would be a little more -- >> is such a useful reminder. a couple warhorses like ourselves have to keep reminding very many, many occasions over the years the speeches from the state of the advanced a base, where the reporters all have overwhelming impressions that are not necessarily matched by voters. i don't think we'll know what the effect of this debate was if any. all vice presidential debates don't have much. >> atreides rethink about 6% to 8% of the voters now who have the polarization. all democrats know who they're voting for and we have a very small slice of the middle who are still moving around and we saw governor romney gains an advantage on that. >> we've got less than a minute year.

i'm going to ask everybody to try to imagine the thought of holes in barack obama's head and mitt romney's head as they were watching this debate. let's quickly do that. what did barack obama releasing? what did mitt romney think? >> i thought barack obama had a moment where he thought i should've said that with the 47% in that debate, were biden 60 attack. >> he's not going to criticize. there you go. >> may probably thought he's not overshadowing. >> we are just about out of time. thank you all your thank you for audience on politico.com. also on c-span, thank you for joining us on an exciting night tonight. >> four years ago, we went through the worst financial crisis since the great depression. lance of jobs lost, yahoo!

industry on the brink of collapse. the financial system had frozen up. and because of the resilience and determination of the american people, we began to fight her way back. >> the president has a view similar to when he ran for years ago, but a bigger government, spending more, taxing work, regulating more. trickle-down government would work. that's not the right answer for america. i will restore the vitality begets america working again.

>> friday, secretary of state hillary clinton speaks before a conference on the political changes in north africa, including egypt, libya and tunisia. ..

knowledge the presence of three ambassadors who have now arrived, ambassador yannis hostra is here, thank you and the ambassador from belgium is here, thank you and i didn't say earlier that he is here the ambassador from the netherlands. okay, thank you all for coming today. we have a very interesting panel to talk about the election and politics and i will introduce them briefly. most of you are very familiar with them and then we will get into questions and have time for questions from those of you who are here. to my immediate left charlie cook who is the founder, editor and publisher of "the cook political report" which is a survival for people who care about politics and the campaigns in the likely outcomes of those campaigns. judy woodruff is senior correspondent for us "pbs newshour" and a senior correspondent at nbc and cnn and

covered me in the white house when i was there a few years ago. mike allen is the chief political correspondent and white house correspondent for "politico" and previously was a white house correspondent for "the washington post" and of course is the editor and writer of playbook which is a daily bible of what goes on in politics and then chris wallace who is the anchor of "fox news" sunday. he has been covering political campaigns since 1980 and it's been a senior correspondent white house correspondent at nbc and abc and between them i have a guest dozens and dozens of years of political expertise. so let us start. i didn't want to make anybody seemed too old, but before the debate, before the debate between romney and obama did any of you honestly think that romney had a chance of winning this election and now do you think there's any chance that

obama could lose this election? why don't we start with charlie? >> clearly president obama was ahead by -- but romney's numbers were underwater and was in really bad shape in ohio, michigan and pennsylvania so it was a longshot. now i would put it, i would still give obama the edge 60-40 and i would say watch ohio more than anything else. >> there still is a way for romney to win it. if he loses ohio it's tougher for him but he has clearly made that more possible by what he did in the debate. >> it is possible for romney to win and we discover that by looking state-by-state which is the reason that before the debate i would have said obama has -- romney has little chance and before the debate you saw him falling off a cliff in key

states. heartening support for the president and softening support for romney and now you are seeing the rippers. now you see all the states moving. >> i thought beforehand, i was somewhat thought there was a greater chance that romney could win simply because there was a series of stakeholders just before the debate and they show that it was closing after romney had about as bad of a september issue could have. it was still close which kind of confirm my belief that the lid on romney's, on obama ceiling because of his poor economic record that there is a limit to how committed to obama people are. i still agree with my colleagues that i think obama is a favorite but i think it's more like 55-45 in a think it's a very clear, still somewhat difficult but a much clearer path to romney

winning the presidency. >> let's talk about the debate for a moment. based on your sources what went wrong for the president? was he now prepared and how did romney become the super debater all of a sudden? we hadn't seen this romney in the prior two months in terms of being asserted. what happened in the white house and what happened with romney? >> i like jay leno's landed only the nfl replacement refs thought that romney won the debate. [laughter] but to keep that metaphor going, the president-elect to me like a team that was vastly overconfident that didn't respect his opponent and didn't taken terribly seriously. conversely the romney i saw was somebody i hadn't hadn't seen in a long time. it was the romney that i saw when he was running for the u.s. senate in massachusetts back in 1994, kind of a pragmatic problem solver nonideological. what would have put them at the

35/40-yard line but i think he was for the first time this whole campaign who he was as opposed to pretending to be somebody he wasn't. >> judy? >> i think, i keep thinking of "the new yorker" cover cartoon with romney standing there with an empty chair behind obama. a little harsh but i think that is what a lot of people came away to believe. i think it's hard to understand truly what happened to the president. we all know he was cool and somewhat distant demeanor and i think that explains some of it, but it also seems to reflect as charlie just said that the president didn't take it seriously and didn't take romney as seriously of a threat as he should have but the reason i'm having a hard time understanding that is clearly his campaign knew that romney is a great debater. if you go back and watch romney's debate in 1994 concentric kennedy and 2002 against his opponent in the

massachusetts governor race, he comes prepared. he got his talking points and he looks at the camera. he makes a very effective presentation so the idea that they didn't know that was coming i have a hard time understanding. i'm still trying to understand what happened. i don't fully know. >> i think that's right and in addition to that when you are president, and this is why ronald reagan lost his first debate and why president george w. bush lost his first re-election debate. when you are president, if you are barack obama, anybody has got to drill. nobody really tells you what to think and you just get used to it and that is why we saw the president almost physically taken aback as romney went at him. the romney folks, they knew months ago that the debate prep would be the manhattan project of their campaign and that was where they were going to flip a

switch if they had any possibility. and we saw a romney who come his family for a long time was encouraging the campaign to let him be more himself, to be less scripted. part of it he resisted. the problem for him now, he has to do it two more times in their number of countries that will tell you one problem is you only get one sneak attack. [laughter] >> i want to apologize to any of the ambassadors that were insulted by mike allen's remark. [laughter] charlie mentioned jay leno. david letterman, one of the things that amuse me was hearing the obama camp series of excuses and explanations for his performance. david letterman to the top 10 excuses at number five i think was that romney's hair is mesmerizing. [laughter] number two was asked osama bin

laden how i did and number one was, it's bush's fault. [laughter] i wasn't the least bit surprised that romney did as well as he did. he did 23 debates in the republican primaries that lasted 43 hours. i know because i participated in i think six or seven of them and when it comes with a brief, and he knows what he has to do, he is an extraordinarily effective debater. i think particularly after newt gingrich took him down in south carolina, he came back and they had a debate in florida. this really was a key moment as to whether not romney would be able to hold on and win the primaries or whether gingrich might blow by him. he took gingrich apart and so i wasn't surprised with a high high-stakes bet he would do just great. i can't say i was all that surprised by obama. i was surprised he did as badly

as he did but it reminded me of 2004. i was in the room at the first kerry/george w. bush debate in coral gables, florida. it was exactly the same thing. kerry came really prepared and was tremendously effective than bush look like he wanted to be anywhere else. it was the debate where he was talking about saddam hussein and kerry said that saddam hussein did not attack us on 9/11 it was bin laden. bush said, i knew that. i knew it was bin laden. [laughter] i think no matter how hard, they are not used to as president someone talking to them like that in public or private and also they are so used to dealing with the worlds problems and the idea that they will have to sit there and sing for their supper and have another job interview somehow feels beneath them. no matter how often they are told by their advisers yeah but

that is the deal, they don't get it through their heads. >> that may quickly underscore a point that chris made about romney's preparation. we were watching a month ago and he did five -- that was in month a month out. something else we saw, something that has been underappreciated is the rising points of senator rob portman republican of ohio who was brought in to play the role of obama but have become a much broader advisor and we talked about how we have heard about how romney felt lonely on the trail. portman fulfilled that and he is now become a big advisor on messaging and we saw that whole package coming together in the debate. >> is there any regret by romney that he didn't pick portman as is a vice president and his

fight in in a help or hindrance? >> why don't you ask us in 12 hours? [laughter] >> why did romney pick ryan. it wasn't somebody that he thought -- many people thought he would pit. >> it was someone that no one -- the only person at the top of the romney urbanization that wanted to pick paul ryan was mitt romney. and he picked paul ryan for a simple reason, the same reason that he and the olympics won a lot of advisers told him he shouldn't and that is because he wanted to. he is the ceo of the campaign and he is his own karl rove and that has caused them a lot of problems. he is the product, not the ceo but that is how he set it up. they feel good about the ryan choice now but the main reason is they gave republicans give republicans excitement which they desperately needed.

if it causes them problems over costs than florida, things can happen. >> i would look at it a little differently. timmie romney had a really bad summer. he had a bad trip to europe. he came back, i think it was a real discomfort in terms of where the campaign was and where things were headed. he wanted to shake things up and he didn't feel like this was the time for a safe choice like a portman or apology to sort of shake it up. interestingly i think there are two groups of people who are excited about the pick of paul ryan. one was conservative republicans and the other was congressional democrats. congressional democrats, we can finally make the ryan planned a big deal. i don't think it ended up being that much of a positive or negative. it moved from these numbers up about two points briefly and then faded. a it closed them up a little in wisconsin briefly and then kind of settle back down.

i think it's fairly neutral so far but nobody was going to move the needle. >> i think -- >> i was going to say i agree with charlie and i think at that point in the campaign things have not been going so well. this was a way to excite the conservative base, going someone who was a conservative and the banner carrier for his budget plan and a plan to attack the entitlement. this was a way to do it, and i think it did momentarily create headaches for them especially in florida and places where seniors are important. but i think is their regret? no. we don't hear that. >> i just might add, i think there is this tension the romney campaign and has been for some time between some people who believe that he needs to run a

safe campaign. he needs to run, and is called the referendum idea or go this is a referendum on barack obama and all i have to do is indict his economic record and present myself as a credible alternative other people who want it to be a big campaign about the issues into competing visions and more the choice election. this is one particular case and i certainly agree with mike that this is a romney decision and not a staff decision, that romney -- he has fluctuated back and forth and was not particularly consistent and i think you saw this in the debate. to make it about bigger issues than competing visions for the country and he wants to take us in this direction and that is why this is a bad idea. ryan helps him make the bigger argument about where to take the country. >> as the white house staff when he talked to them privately are they worried that they could lose this election or they're not worried anymore? >> i think they are certainly more sobered about it than they were before.

although when you talk to them, the they all say we always knew this would tighten up. we always knew that florida was going to be tough in virginia was going to be tough and i think they knew or carolina would be out of range. michelle obama was just there a day or two ago. >> mourned the employment has dropped below 8% and consumer confidence is up in the market is up by the youth you go back six or eight weeks ago and prior to that, i think the obama campaign, the white house were extremely aware that they had a very very ugly economy and incumbents generally don't get reelected with these kinds of economies. so i think they were, to me, they have always come across as hungrier and he more aggressive than the romney campaign in almost every respect. i think they were ready for a fight from the get-go. >> which is what makes the

debate so -- the campaign has been hungry. they been aggressive. look at the advertising, really smart advertising. >> who was really running the obama campaign? is a david axelrod or plouffe or obama? who is really running the romney campaign? is the family now intervening and are they running it or who is running the campaign? >> the white house side david plouffe was the campaign manager in no aid and when they were underdogs brought them back and now the senior dicer at the white house, he has pretty well the last word on most things both in the campaign in the white house. the scene of the campaign manager in chicago runs that fast organization date today. on the romney side, romney is the ceo and when people look back at that campaign for the came from behind or whether he lost, a big factor to look at is

how a business person could agree to the campaign that has such fuzzy accountability, fuzzy lines of responsibility and this campaign management plan and a strategy plan, friends and family plan. what people close to governor romney say is that, that was deliberate, that he likes having the last word. he likes having the strategists give their view and as bush used to say he would be the decider. >> who do you think is running the campaigns? >> well i don't know today who is running the campaigns. [laughter] but you know the strategy and the messaging and the advertising, to be honest frankly i think it has been completely misguided from the first day. if this say is a referendum and this was going to be a

referendum up or down president obama and the economy there still is a threshold level of comfort and trust that people have to had to have in the alternative and when the romney campaign decided to focus everything from the same as they the nomination on economy, economy, economy without building him up, undecided voters in swing states knew nothing about that romney other than -- knew nothing. they had no sense of whether he was a trustworthy person, someone who at the values they would want in the oval office in the romney campaign did not go when and campaign like they traditionally do with biographical testimonial ads back in june to kind of puts a put some meat on the bones to reach a threshold level of comfort with voters. so the obama campaign cosan. bain capital plant closings, layoffs, outsourcing, income tax returns, cayman island and the bermudas.

date basically take a baseball bat and the ronnie's brains and in the six or seven key states. that is why he had so many problems. why they did that i don't know. i have been asking that question since june. and i just think it was a huge miscalculation and the romney campaign family intervention as political report of the other, introduced him you know, this is what they should've done back in may. the intervention that was reported that was mrs. romney and tad romney the older son of romney went to his father and said you have to change things. >> for a long time the family had wanted to take the charlie cook approach and chris wallace alluded to the fact that the stuart stevens theory, the street -- chief strategist. the campaign was all you all you have been was not obama in that

turned out to the wrong. we can see in all the different channels that no, you have to be yourself in addition to being not obama. >> let me explain who stuart stevens is because you lead real lives and you shouldn't have to know. stuart stevens is a republican strategist from mississippi, very interesting guy who one time was a hollywood writer and use to write for northern exposure and has written a number of books on the three-star restaurants through europe so immediately hear all them like them. he also took steroids at one point to see the effect it would have on his abilities to do extreme sports and the last 100 miles to the north pole during cycling and it was a very interesting guy. but clearly was first among equals in the romney campaign for a long time, very much espouse the theory of this is an

election on the economy and all we have to do is be the other guy. it's a referendum on obama. there was growing frustration in the campaign particularly post-nomination as it seemed to not work as well and romney would fall further behind. it seems, with all due respect and i have tremendous respect and the family intervention story -- that depends on your talking to us oversold. i think stuart stevens is still important. i think his star is somewhat eclipsed and i think other people feel the republican national chairman long-time operative in this town named ed gillespie and i'm told his star is rising and he has taken a more conventional us versus the other guy choice election. >> to the final debate questions. one what will the president do differently and how will romney

prepare for a different apartment tonight we have the vice presidential debate so let's talk about the presidential debate first. what would you expect to see obama do differently next time and how would romney be prepared to deal with that? >> i think that the precedence going to show up at the next debate and the 16th is a week from today. it's a different format which makes his job frankly tougher because it's not going to be the moderator and a candidate. this is a town hall meeting. it will be moderated by candy crowley of cnn. they are going to be undecided voters have been chosen i think by gallup who are going to be there at hostra unit -- hofstra university in new york on long island so the job of the presidents to make a background and reassure the people who are with him and the end decided voters that he really is in this thing and he really wants to be reelected and he does have an argument to make against romney but he has got to do it in the context of answering the

questions of his voters because that is the format, that is the structure of the debate. it is a trickier challenge for him than just a straight on debate on the third debate is the way which is a week, the monday after his foreign-policy which is another set of issues. >> the debate we will see different obama and we will see a different romney or what will we see in the next debate would you say? >> we will see more of the romney that we have seen on the trail and more of the president obama that we are used to seeing. he held back for whatever reason and now he realizes he has to show that he is as hungry as his campaign. george w. bush used to say you have to ask the people for the vote. we will save president obama doing that very quickly. >> in the vice presidential debate tonight, is this going to be relevant? do people really care who the vice presidential debate winner is and what will you be looking

for tonight? >> i think think there should be a disclaimer across the tv screen. thisthis is for entertainment purposes only and will not affect the election, unles

first of all, she let's say it's even smaller than the last one interestingly enough looking back. palin and biden got a bigger audience than the first obama mccain debate because people were so fascinated with sarah palin. this probably will not get 67 people but let's say it gets 40 million or 50 million. it's still a lot of eyeballs and i think what you will see biden do is go naftzger ryan's record in some of the budget proposals in the ryan plan and say that is the real romney. now we are figuring out that is what he will do. it will be interesting to watch how ryan pivots off that and

says no, those were my ideas. a basically your ideas don't work and that is why the economy is where it is. >> let's talk a moment about the senator house. the senate is controlled by democrats and republicans have tried for some time to pick up enough seats to gain control. charlie you're the expert. will republicans gain control of the senate? >> a year and a half ago i would have said there's a 70% chance of republicans taking the majority. i would put it down to round 40 or something like that. the allenby is no retirement and todd akin of missouri deciding to become a biology instructor. [laughter] some places where republicans picked great candidates like mexico and florida was a disappointment but democrats had 53 seats and republican have 47 so republicans made a three seat

net gain if they win the presidency and vice president paul ryan would break the tie and four seats if they don't. republicans will win nebraska ben nelson's democratic seat so effectively it is 50-48 so republicans need two or three seats after you factor in nebraska. or attend tossups, five democratic in five republican i think the day after the election, don't think we will be sure who will be in the majority in the senate. i would give democrats a little bit of an edge with 10 races that are effectively within three points and one thing about the senate race is on election day in the nephew take out the way the elections like 06 and i wait for democrats, 2010 for republicans they -- two-thirds had to break one way or the other like dominos and they tend to break more one way or the other wherever that last --

>> because the race is so close. >> with this group in 06, you had missouri and montana and virginia, three states that effectively decided the majority in the senate. they were decided by 60,600 votes and it was well into the debate. >> who do you think will be in control of the senate? >> agreeing with charlie's math but the other end of the telescope. today you would say the favorite is president obama and today you would say democrats are likely to keep the senate. if governor romney has a very narrow path when you look state-by-state. governor romney wins the presidency that will mean there is a wave behind him and there is some lift to him and that will bring an a couple senate candidates.

>> just so you understand charlie cook has forgotten more about the senate races then i ever knew. he is the bible in this. the republicans were not so sure as he pointed out in 2006 was the way the election and democrats and one in a lot of places like montana that you wouldn't expect him to win so is the one and an correct me if i'm wrong, the democrats were defending 23 seats in the republicans only 10 so i mean just by the nature of the mathematics it seems likely that the republicans would pick up seats in the democrats 23-10 but right now the conventional wisdom and the charlie cook was them is probably less than 50/50 that republicans will take the senate. >> going to the house for a moment. the house is controlled by republicans and democrats have to pick up a lot of seats. is there a possibility for the democrats regaining control of

the house? >> it's a real longshot. to put it in historical context and sand of world war ii only one partner, the party in the white house, picked up the 15 seats in the presidential election year and that was when lyndon johnson was destroying barry goldwater so in other words not even a nixon 72 or r. reagan 84 landslide did they get out of single digits. for democrats to net 25 they will lose 10 of their own seats so they have to grossed 35 to net 25. i think it's pretty and mike. >> assuming that the president is reelected he was dealing with the republican representatives. >> do you all agree? >> i want to associate myself with the remarks of mr. cook. >> let's go through the key senate races. who will win in massachusetts, senator warren or senator brown? >> to win, scott brown has to give 100% republican vote and

100% of the independent vote and one out of five democrats to vote with it. in other words split the ticket and vote for the public in. i think it will be an extremely close race but, think scott brown is a trip to candidate and is running a great campaign but it's uphill. it's close but i would give will warrant a little bit of an edge. i don't think frankly her campaign is very good or she is very strong. >> i can make a prediction but i think warren has helped enormously by the president in massachusetts. >> she has a growing edge. she has raised more money than people thought that she would. it's such a difficult stage in a presidential year. in 2004, it was the blue estate in the nation except for d.c. and had poor democratic votes. massachusetts had the highest democratic percentage. very difficult and scott brown

has been hurt by the debate. it's very difficult to debate someone of a different gender and it feels a lot less pressure this time. it's hard to go against their palin to be appropriately deferential. scott brown has had that problem and elizabeth warren has gone out every time and addressed her as professor warren and he has a sort of a nice guy image going for him and he has lost it. >> would either of you care to make a projection about the biggest upset you see in the senate or the most unlike the -- somebody that no one is expecting our. >> ppaca the biggest surprise to me as connecticut where lindemann man is running a little bit ahead of the dummit had a congressman murphy and given that she has spent $50 million in a great republican year and came up short last time but it's almost as if women voters have sort of

gotten over the -- thing. it's like old news. they have moved on and i know there are a lot more moving parts in the election than that but that is the biggest surprise to me so far. >> she is running a very different campaign than the one she ran last time. the other interesting races richard carmona in arizona, the former u.s. surgeon general. under president bush and his running is the as the democratic candidate for senate. we don't know and we can predict he's going to to win but he has made a much more pervasive than we expected. >> and aiken is also a surprise after he played biology professor. he had people like karl rove and american crossroads in the national republican senate republican campaign committee drop-in man hasn't put it dimon to the campaign and people like mitt romney saying he should drop out. first he needs to drop out if he

didn't -- is still a reasonably close race. if i had to bet i would probably still bet on claire mccaskill winning. >> can i sum -- say something about missouri? james mcardle, pittsburgh in the west in alabama in between. that kind of works in missouri. alabama in between. >> it's not an upset or surprised that the other marquee senate race here in virginia is tim kaine the democratic former governor who is very strong and that's a real problem for mitt romney. he needed a stronger george allen to bring him along. at the moment came look strong and that's a real worry to romney. >> the let's assume what you more or less say is likely to happen in the house was a will stay republican in the senate might say democratic or could do you expect leadership changes in

either the senate or the house and republicans or democrats? would anybody like to challenge or anybody like to retire or will that change? >> i think no change. the only way the house will change is if republicans and i really really don't think this will happen. if republicans lost more than 15 seats in the house, think they will have a problem but i think it is going to be more single digits so i don't think there's a problem at all. >> whoever's president of the united states will have to deal with a lame-duck session of congress and we have the fiscal issues. let's assume obama is reelected. what you think will happen then and let's assume that romney selected and what do you think will happen in the lame-duck then? >> i think, so much depends on who is elected and what the margin is and who is going to take which seat or go i see a holding action in the lame-duck with nothing definitive, unless

the president nor mitt romney comes in with a very convincing when and just has the sort of moral authority that comes with a wave election either direction. right now, and i don't think we see that, chris said maybe it could happen. i'm sorry, mike said maybe it would have been for romney if all the stars are in alignment. >> for all the talk of the fiscal cliff it will be pushed off for six months and in addition if you have a wave election would mean and what boehner said the other day, that he had a problem with the idea because a wave election there is going to be the change in the makeup of the house and/or the senate and do you want this old house and senate which is unrepresentative with the what the country has just voted making laws you know that are contrary to what the new house and senate are going to do? i think most likely for all the

fears and lord knows we will cover it on cable news, of a fiscal cliff my guess is just that they will put it off. >> and we do see the likelihood of a deal to make a deal as they are saying but there are two complications to that. there is one incentive for the markets day by day and there will be a lot of incentive to reassure the markets but the two, the two impediments to that, one the white house intends to play real hardball. they feel by putting it off, they loose their leverage and they do not plan to just extend all that, punk all that. there is going to be a fighter for that and second of president obama wins, paul ryan is going to be back in the house. he probably will be running for

president in 2016. if paul ryan is back and running for president he is not going to want to make a deal that sees raising revenue, raising taxes and the conservatives will listen to him. that is another hurdle. >> i just want to make one quick -- there is pressure on both sides to come together. this so-called gang of six senators, the republicans and three gamut that had been meeting in the last few days and joined by a few other members. there is pressure to get something done. they know that the country is on edge of the business community incorporated america. you know better than anybody david to get this figured out in their aware of that. >> they are meeting and mount vernon to get inspiration from president washington. you mention mentioned 2016. it's not too early for washington d.c. to think about the next election.

election. bedarian 2020 so let's assume for a moment obama gets reelected or assume he is not reelected or go either way whose the likely democratic nominee in 2016? >> it sought -- it's either going to be hillary clinton and everybody thinks she is going to give it a serious look at nobody knows for sure. terry mcauliffe is out there somewhere. terry what do you think lex or it's going to be who else? >> andrew cuomo maybe. >> i think he will look at it. >> governor mark o'malley certainly is going to make a run. >> i assure you know private equity person will be running for president again. if romney is not elected, who will be the presumptive nominee for the republicans in 2016? is pul reitman -- is paul ran

presumptive then? >> arcaro rubio is fantastic and and they seem to be the clear key front-runners. we think governor chris christie of new jersey will also go for it or go governor bobby jindal of louisiana already working towards a. >> let's assume obama is reelected and we have heard hillary clinton will step down as secretary of state and tim geithner is stepping down of secretary of treasury. who will be the next secretary of state and the secretary of treasury? any guesses? >> i will tell you who won't the as secretary of state, susan rice. i think her chances were greatly diminished by her performance on the show a couple of weeks back and i think that would come back to bite her. >> i thought she was relating what she'd been told by the intelligence community. that would still be a problem for her?

>> i think the increasing information is that is what the intelligence community said. here is what i don't understand about that whole story. i take this personally because she came on my show and i specifically asked her about, here is what the president of libya said and the preib planned attack and here's what al qaeda said she continued to tell the story of this spontaneous demonstration. we now know and i'm going to get on my soapbox for a minute because at 6:00 or 6:30 the day before, tuesday, state department had a conference call in which they told a few select reporters that there was no protest that all and in fact ambassador stevens had gone out into the street with a diplomat whom he had dinner with at 8:30 night and he had said goodbye to him and the report from the embassy was there was nothing there. there had never been a demonstration and it didn't

quite obey and it 9:30 the sun people came came in and attack are coincidentally not a word about it in yesterday's "washington post" are yesterday's "new york times." in any case how do she get on the air, not one, not two but five days later and talk about this spontaneous protest? >> but i still think there was a fog of intelligence that is not completely clear. >> how do you have a spontaneous protest that never existed and it turned out yesterday at the hearing that the person in charge of security for the state department was on the phone in real-time that tuesday night the 11th with the people in the installation in libya and they were told that there was no protest. >> just to bolster chris's point and wide this could be a story for a long time, and the state department briefing they also said a crucial addition to this if they had never thought that it was a spontaneous eruption

that the ambassador talked about on our show which is different than the blog of intelligence in the original piece. >> you think the next secretary of state if obama is elected would be? >> not susan rice. [laughter] >> senator john kerry and we are told the president does not blame him for the debate prep problem but no one wants to be associated with that. >> but if romney is elected president? >> the thing is in the romney camp as mike and chris have been describing, there is an array of opinion on foreign-policy. john bolton the former um ambassador and bob zoellick and i think he is more likely to go with zoellick then with john bolton but we don't know. >> a very wise person, the

possibility for secretary of state center rob portman to become an important visor has hill experience, has white house experience in 41 and 43. >> let me just pick up on what judy said because i think one of the really interesting stories if romney is elected is after the guy has campaigned for the present great years but one of their own to string questions will be who is the real romney particularly now that he is not running for years from then and thinking of re-election but is not running at that moment for president and we don't know. there will be a battle between the neocons and the foreign-policy quote and if i can use this jargon, realist. whether it's a zeliger john bolton, we will find out where romney tilts in terms of the people he selects for his cabinet and top staff. >> i read, the republican

establishment, the main old-style has been very ann mcfall with most of the things romney has said in the area foreign-policy and the neocons seem to have had a more dominant voice but the question is to chris's point, where's the real romney and if elected would he go back to scowcroft to view policy or the neocons? we have 26 days to go before the election and one last question i would like to ask. what would you project is the electoral vote for the winner? how many electoral votes do you think the winner will be and if president is elected how many keeping he will get? 270 are needed to win. >> 300. >> 300 for obama and what would you say? >> i'm not going to say who. >> say 300. >> i will say 295.

>> i will take a 305 to 320. i think there there has been a tipping point and there will be a clear winner and i think there will be an early night. someone in prison virginia they will improve in ohio and improved in colorado. >> here is how weak minded i am. when charlie gave this number i thought that's the perfect number and impact it was going to take under and i will take the over as well. >> you mentioned the early for example they are going to be exit polls this time. >> but not in as many states. >> so when one wave really now and when will the networks know at 9:00 who the winner is? how long will it take before you go on the air and say who the winner is? >> we will not say who the winner is and how we project them to have won the states with 270. it was clear early on that obama had one but i think it was 9:00

or 10:00 at night before we finally announced or projected he was the winner. in another which we have to project. we can't just say well he won virginia even though we know at that point it was over. >> the polls haven't closed on the west coast and you know it's like late you go on the air now and say the winners x? >> we would wait until we have the projected states with a sufficient number of electoral votes. >> exit polls are still polls and if the races within a point or to an exit poll doesn't tell you anything more than you already knew and with up to 40% of people voting early therefore not in the exit polls so they have to take a record telephone pole -- poll to find out her the early voters went with so states within a point, two or three you have to wait for feel those. >> i have time for one or two questions and whoever raises

their hand first. any questions? who wants to ask a second question? >> the first one right here and we will have one more. >> i may have misunderstood but no one mentioned jeb bush for the next time around. he seems to me like the strongest of the lot. >> i think governor bush is an enormously confident guy and a pricey and i. the problem is his last name. i have the impression that maybe every three or four months he pulls out a geiger counter and holds the thing next to his last name and as long as they goes -- then he turns it off and puts it away and as soon as it doesn't happen and if he is still young enough he will run. [laughter] but you know does what it is. >> and the other comments on that? other questions? other questions? one more question back here and that will be the last question.

>> do you think all the money that has been raised and spent will be a significant determinant of who wins? >> i don't. i think it raises a whole other question about, do we want money to be that big of a factor in american politics weather determines the outcome or not? i think the much bigger factor in the congressional races where money can completely tilt the outcome because the folks running or not as well-known. i think of presidential there are so many other factors at play. it's not the money isn't ported all but i just don't think it's the most important. >> there is one place that money will be a factor between now and election day because both sides will have enough money to get their message out and i'm talking exclusively about the presidential race.

what happened basically and i don't think it was covered enough was that romney for a very large to read ran out of money because he had spent all his money on the primaries and a lot of super pac money but he really did not have a lot of money. obama had it sitting on this war chest and he thought it was going to be much bigger than romney's. the reason that obama overwhelmed romney with those ads between april and august when as charlie said he was able to demonize the out of touch plutocrat is because of the fact that he got a huge advantage of money and they could not spend general election money although they were spending all treasury of it until he had literally not only been nominated but accepted the nomination in late august so that is one place where money was important. >> let me go january to april.

the republican nomination win a lot longer than it would have because you had mezzanine financing in in the way of super pacs basically providing money to santorum when he needed it, gingrich when he needed and actually romney when he needed it and the kathie republican nomination contest running a lot longer than it would have. >> i want to thank our four panels, chris wallace, judy woodruff and -- we have for each of you, we have the first map of the district of columbia and one for your office. okay, one photo. acacacac

>> i watched on c-span feed various congressional airings and the liberation some public policy and also information that is put out by the various think-tanks in washington d.c.. the hajj different authors and has discussions. he has a discussion about the books and so it's just an easy way to get information in the

books without having to read the book. >> propublica held a discussion tuesday on the influence of super pacs a nonprofit in the 2012 election. speakers included former federal election chairman bradley smith. former "national public radio" host moderated the discussion. from the lower east side tenement in new york city this is an hour and 15 minutes. >> i love the title, dark money rising and it seems like it should be a batman character involved but it's a lot of

people with a lot of money. i'm going to introduce her panel starting immediately to my left is melanie melanie sloan executive director of citizens for sponsor billy and ethics in washington otherwise known as crew. she is in ashland recognized expert on congressional ethics and prior to starting crew she served as assistant u.s. attorney in the district of columbia from 1998 82 to 2003. next to her we have nick confessore of "the new york times." is the political reporter currently covering 2012 presidential campaigns finance and really speaking to that he is the recipient of a pulitzer prize in 2009 into his left we have cam barker of propublica, reporter and author and covert campaign finance issues focusing on dark money this season. she is a reason edward r. morrow prep val at the council on foreign relations in new york. next you can we have melanie

sloan. he is one of the nation's former experts on campaign finance law and he served as commissioner on the federal election commission, resigning in 2005 so welcome to all of you and let me go straight into their speed round. i was thinking about how to kick off this conversation in the reality is a lot of people have no clue what campaigning finance laws to let me start with a speed round and i'm going to go straight down the line. if you had to address a middle civics class and tell them what they should pay attention to and campaign on law and selection what would you say to them? >> i will tell them that when they see all those commercials on their television screens that are just endless right now, that they should ignore most of them because they have no idea about the context where the ads in who is putting them out and why they are putting them out and most of the things that are set in them are not necessarily through.

>> i will it's a disclosure for the groups. >> i think that they have to understand -- to understand american politics today. >> i would agree with those points to bring it back to the idea of whether we want anonymous money coming into our political system and may be taking a look at all cases where you have that sort of influence coming in and what happened. >> i will it's a campaign finance reform is about how the money government -- regulates your political speech in u.s. voters, when you become voters will ultimately have to say so it's important to pay attention to the candidates and the issues and what they are saying and that is where the real money is. >> i would like to point out there are few more seats up front of people are still coming in.

i just want to set a bit of terrain. the center of our panel, i think that you would consider yourselves pork -- reporters, correct? at the edges of the panel we have people on various different sides of the issues of campaign finance regulation. >> we are at the buffer actually. >> where the firewall. is it fair to say breath that you think that overregulation is a problem? are those fair characterizations? >> yes, for me. >> just to give you a set up. let me start with you can because you are part of propublica. propublica has been doing a series of looks you know basically an interactive project involving people who are looking at some of the at eyes and are able to free the file, that's the hashtag for free the files. i know that is not tricky what

you are working on but i wonder if you could tell us about that project and why you have tried to reach out to the crowd to look at how money is being spent? >> thanks for that because this is going to be on c-span so maybe we will get a bunch more volunteers. can everybody hear me first of all? free to file is an attempt to look at campaign finance and what folks are spending on ads, tv ads in particular, in the top 30 markets. what we have right now is a system where most ads close to the election are supposed to be and are reported to the federal election commission but over the summer you will get all these at the come out and they are called -- and these are from groups with names like americans for america and they are that adds a come out and they say you know so-and-so is a bad guy. call so-and-so and tell them to stop being such a bad guy. we have all seen the variations of those ads.

those to not have to be reported to the federal election commission. they only have to be reported to the individual tv stations and so as of this summer at the sec started putting a lot of these on line but they were very cumbersome and unwieldy so what publicans try to do is to proud sourcing get folks to go in and go on line in identify how much money is being spent and the group that is spending it. this is in large part how you can identify some of these outside groups we are talking about that otherwise just sort of come in and go out without anybody necessarily knowing that they are there. i guess i would say it's important for dark money, it's important to identify these groups but it's also important not just in the presidential campaign because i think everybody usually focuses on the residential campaign. it's almost more port and annie's house races down the ticket where you have got the idea that a little amount of money can come in from the south side group right before an election or even over the summer during the primary season and

completely sway the election and you really have no idea who is behind these groups. and neck, turning to you what -- one of the things we have seen this tracking is the super pac money is fairly evenly matched. maybe you can flesh out its terms -- in terms of the partisan spending. is that correct? ..

which is then most bad name for a site groups traditionally has occurred and in 2010 i expect that partisan divide to massively shift in favor of republicans started this month. >> what is the biggest picture in terms of overall fund-raising for outside money, i'd be a super pac or other aquatic >> in this political area, there are more rich conservatives who want to spend their money on campaigns in which liberals. it wasn't always true. it hasn't always been true. it is true in this area in the last four years than one possible reason could the that there's a democrat in the white house. when there's a republican in the white house in 2004, you saw a lot of rich liberals who want to spend money. they use different mechanisms, different kinds of groups.

for the first time in five or six years, the last time i covered it, was early in 2000 early bush years and i have all these for not and documents and guys in campaign-finance law. there are completely worthless. we have to relearn all this stuff because it does change a lot. it's very complicated. i'm sure tantalus to the left will have an argument for words created. what we see in this area with incumbents, lots of money on the right, not nearly as much on the left of him were talking about. the mic and you were speaking of camino, brad, one of the things your organization has on this webpage, center for competitive politics. cc pete is designated to collect and political rights.

soon the candidate that a bit on your stance on campaign finance, but explain what you mean by protecting first amendment political rights and some other things you've done as an organization. >> the center for competitive politics was formed to be a counterpart to a large number of groups, notably, cause, but also groups such as the league of women voters and the public citizen and other groups very active in the area of campaign finance reform. and we felt that there was a great deal of political science literature that is out there, that is very different from common perceptions of money in politics, that money in politics is not frequently work the way people think. so given an example of one case that we've kind of picked up on, that many would be extremely unpopular is the case with scott in indiana challenging the state's law that prohibits political cause that people get. people say i hate getting calls. the fact is the amazing thing is most people listen and most people listen all the way

through. they are very much one of the cheapest, least expensive ways that a low finance candidate can reach large numbers of voters with this message. they have been shown to new voters pretty effectively and begin the law did not send in the sense that you could author a person as much as the water. you call them 24/7 if you had a live operator on the line, which make it work a well-financed campaign. not if you're a small campaign that needed to rely on robo calls. so that is one of the series we've taken out. we've taken more directly campaign-finance relatedfrom including cocounsel in a case called speech now.org versus fec, which is the case that created super pacs and set individuals can pool their resources together and did independent expenditures at that moment and couple with citizens united that been said you can accept corporate and union

funds. >> does the modern super pac make you happy aquatic >> yes, it does. it's generally been a good thing. if you look at what super pacs have done, we are in our second election and people will complain about this election. too negative, too expensive. but think back. didn't she say the same thing in 2008 before but it super pacs and is this campaign really that different? in fact, the weights different as we many voices. we find over and over again the super pacs level the playing field and incumbency rates remaining challengers and challengers. i think in the short term right now, super pacs have been favoring republicans, conservative candidates, but that's a temporary thing that went republicans are in power, it will almost always favor the party out of power.

as nick mentioned in 2004 you have the predecessors called 527 some of you may remember as part of the law to relearn everything. those are heavily used in 2004 by the democrats, much more so than republicans. it is something that benefits out of power candidas intends to even the playing field. one quick point is although we call them also groups come as a fairly easy chair and cheese. these are not outside groups. these are groups of american citizens participating in elections. and who came up with the idea ever that only the candidates are to be speaking in the campaign or they should have some prefers beach pattern in the campaign. outside groups are what it's all about. that's us, baby. with because they want to. >> melanie, i'm going to turn to you. i'm sure you are eager to jump in, but i want to remind people your group is crew.

how do you parse out the equation of money and speech, just for starters? >> i want to say what brad said is often not true. it is old voices and it's very, very few voices in his very few voices of rich people. when you have a group like the american action network or crossroads, they are funded by remarkably few people and i think that is the key. we are talking people get $500,000. this isn't your man on the street. this is a couple of people, maybe 100 people are participating in these elections. to think about what do you think our elections are to be bought and paid for just by billionaires and multimillionaires. and that is who is influencing our election. it is not your show citizen who has an influence here. those are the voices you are hearing. >> one thing on that topic. this is not an academic study and i want to see a more wide

range of analysis. i covered super pacs in the primaries this year and effective as a candidate but the biggest super pac who won the republican primary. essentially it was mitt romney. his donors were republican donors for the most part. the guy with the second biggest super pac, i would actually say that i don't expect there to ever be an open presidential primary ever won by a candidate who doesn't have a super pac as long as they remain part of american politics. >> let me go back to melanie because they think she hasn't quite finished. but then we'll go back to you. it sounds like we've hit a nerve. it didn't take long to see you go ahead and then we'll go back to brad. >> i want to go back to something nick started with because the super pacs are the real danger. the super pacs i like to think of as the kim kardashian of the campaign-finance world. the really the thing you have to worry about are the 501-c4

organizations in your eyes and ears glaze over, but 501-c4 organizations cannot people donate anonymously to those organizations and those organizations are what real money is coming real power is an enough a lot of bats said the action network by normal men and american crossroads is the super pac run by crossers gps is 501-c4 and the c4's have much more. we have no idea who the donors are we won't see those groups file tax returns for a year and a half. the election will be long over before we have any idea how much money they had one never know who actually put in althat money. just because we don't know doesn't mean that people who benefited from all those donations fall. corporations are good money like that, or large donors are expecting a return on their

investment. so just because we don't know, doesn't mean they're not expecting gratitude. he will make darn sure the people who benefit from contributions know exactly who they gave to what we have no idea what those people in turn is the one we'll be doing for the onion will never be able to type those things together like we can now own a look at campaign contributions. that won't happen with the donations to the 501-c4's. >> i watch her mind everyone in the room at best it shall have an opportunity to write down questions. so you can feel free to do that now, do it on a piece of paper coming up program, whatever. we'll be coming around 20 minutes to collect those. so brad. >> well, i want to start a technical point to bring the audience up to speed on things. for example, we often refer to super pacs as from a super pac or romney super pac. by definition, super pacs have

to operate independently of the campaign. one thing that's come about the idol think anybody anticipated was his candidate super pac that existed to elect one candidate and that's what we mean. we should note the romney campaign or the obama campaign or the santorum or cambridge campaigns do not play a role in setting super pacs that. >> yes they do because it's always their top people. >> but they don't play any role. romney can't talk. of course they do. you don't expect a bunch of romney people to start aching for super popcorn obama super pac. you expect a bunch of romney supporters to start a romney super pac. the point is there that none of contact contact with the campaign. now if we take it from there, let's go on and look more at a couple of key points here. the real money is not the c4 spits a small group keeps a good website on this and their figures to october 6 show that super pacs has spent about twice

as much as c4 groups. >> this was reported to the federal election commission. >> okay, we'll go into that in a minute, too. >> c-4 groups are a fraction of the spinning you see in this campaign. they will not spend as much in total as the obama campaign alone will and that is all c4 groups for all races in the cycle. the obama campaign will spend more. now let's talk about these ordinary citizens. both cores are not ordinary citizens, but let's think about this a little bit. when foster's freeze founded a super pac, did that keep ordinary citizens from being heard? or did that make millions of ordinary citizens who liked rick santorum, did it help them get heard? rick santorum is getting creamed. for newt gingrich came out and was supported by sheldon edelson commented that john voices out?

or did that people here newt gingrich? should i keep newt gingrich in the race longer? dittmer people get to hear his views? to supporters who they were drowned out by that spending? >> there were no newt gingrich supporters. that's the point. we had faster freezing, basically three quarters of the people keeping them in the race. those who could actually american supporters, they would've been able to stay in the race because they would have had lots of dollars, which they did not have. >> at this point we're not talking seriously because they know hundreds of thousands of people, if you say they did have any supporters, melanie, are not talking serious because there's hundreds of thousands of supporters who voted for them in the primaries. he have many, many supporters. he's just an ignorant dupe filled by a few 32nd ads, but i'm not so pessimistic about the american voter. we go back further. we look at steve camp or jack

kemp. in 96, did he drown out voters? no, he may spending his own money, all you could do at that time on his own campaign made it more possible that bob dole might do so that other gop candidates in the race got heard from. everybody did. we go back to the last election before the passage of the campaign act of 1968. mccarthy got his campaign running in a weakened because a bunch of people given 10 million bucks, which you can't do. did that drown people out or did that make to that drown people out or did that make >> well, clearly, no lack of disagreement on >> well, clearly, no lack of disagreement on this panel. i do want to go back to you, ken. you've been looking not tracking the money. in addition to these questions of how much influence individuals have come and there's so question of what the state of play. one of the thinkers interested in a something you wrote about, that george soros warned the

bible or virtual bible that he wouldn't donate to the super pac and he decided to. so what do you think is changing, kim, in the game in terms of this election and setting precedents for future elections and how elections have found that? >> democrats are pretty much said originally were against outside super pacs. for not going to play in the sandbox, we must all take our toys and go home. if you like it they don't do this, they're going to be an incredible disadvantage. they are probably correct. what i've been interested in noting so far is that you don't have at least these nonprofits spending as much as he do on the conservative side. i would return to brad's point that it's a small percentage of money. in summary says, you are seeing more than half the money coming in being traced back to groups that we don't know who their

donors are. and that i think matters a lot. your point is correct that obama will most likely spend more than all these groups. if you look at the democratic side, everybody said, and this is pretty much because of incumbency. maybe people should turn off their cell phones. so on the democratic side, you'll see the obama campaign on the presidential side spending more than 50% and then you have the outside groups making much less than 50%. but i would guess that on the conservative side you'll have romney coming in a little bit less than 50% on the outside spending groups making up more than half, which is going to give some folks outside influence compared to the pats. maybe were fine with that and that's okay. but it is something i think is interesting to talk about. i also think it's interesting you got a lot of money in certain races that you don't know where it's coming from. >> you may or may not be able to

answer this, but if you can, one of the things i was interested in is that the supreme court is deciding to take another look at affirmative action nine years after his previous decision. do you think the citizens united will come up for review again before the supreme court anytime soon? or more perhaps the point, do people who are looking at campaign finance as founders or organizers expect a lot to change again by the next cycle or the one after that click >> i don't think so. the current supreme court has made it clear where it stands on citizens united on money and politics. i think if anything, the trend will probably accelerate in a few different ways and they think they've recently turned down a challenge, right, brad, on some aspect of citizens in reemphasized, no, we actually really believe this. we are entering an era where complete store hold any respect

for president in the same way they used to, so if their new justices added, if obama wins the reelection and there's more democratic appointed judges, it's very easy to imagine a five to four decision reversing are changing in some way. under this current court, they made very plain to the majority that this is they believe, this is their constitutional principle. they will keep applying it. i'm not a lawyer, but i don't see any evidence of a serious reconsideration of the citizens. the >> the supreme court decided they rejected a chance to read this is citizens united vice-chairman of place that came up from the montana supreme court that had given an opportunity to revisit the issue. they declined to take. >> you know, just to go back to almost the beginning premise that i launched with a middle-school students.

it doesn't take a middle-school student not to understand the state of play. to what extent, and i will go back down the line again. to what extent do you think it is important that citizens understand the state of political funding? you basically just sad there is no revisiting by the supreme court anytime soon. obviously people watch political ads and money is impacting people's votes. but is it -- is there a mechanism by which individual citizens can influence the funding environment other than giving money? >> that's how. >> has just giving money. >> that's it. >> money is one kind of speech. i was asked a similar question at a gathering recently and i said look, barack obama has shown there's a second model for politicians. you can build a base of small

donors and as brad points out it can be a robust, even unlimited spending. >> any other thoughts on how much impact citizens have over the state of play? >> we are and what appear the five of us because we are in the more influential group of citizens. we have influence without having to give money. that's one of the things i point out, it went quick anecdote. when i was at the fec, used to coming to washington to spend a week or two in the summer, and the attacks of the department of agriculture. and i remember one year they were creating a debate topic and they would have these debates on campaign finance. i looked at the resolution being introduced to regulate campaign finance. the students thought that the regulation, their proposal would create more regulation than the

current system had. but actually created less regulation than the current system had. they would be deregulated and if their accepted. this shows in a sense how poor public knowledge is of our laws in this area and what a sort of going on here. for example, a large percentage of americans think they give to campaigns and federal elections. that's one of many kinds of things that make it hard to discuss the issue. >> what about the question of impact. not everyone has money to give and not everyone who has money thinks that money should be their prime mover in terms of political speech other than voting. so, how influential their citizens, citizens not leveraging their wealth in the discussion of how wealth is used in politics?

>> citizens are more influential. sadly they choose not to be. we have a very poor track record of voting in this country. very few citizens cannot do though. people could go to the town halls and demand real answers and politicians to not be palmed off with platitudes. they could do far more going door-to-door for the candidates they like. they could run against candidates they don't like because so many people are so dissatisfied for very good reasons that elected representatives they could run or push toward other people they like. it's not that people couldn't do more. it's generally they choose not to. because they are busy and have other priorities not so hard to understand that i think there's been increasing cynicism about politicians who all seem to be out for themselves and if not out for themselves to unknown pockets, they're certainly out for their last campaign dollar and most certainly sell almost anything for a campaign donation. that does increase the cynicism of our society. that is a large part of the

reason we need greater regulation of campaign finance. if you're up to me, would have public financing of elections because in that way we could make sure politicians were trading legislative favors and those in committees to make sure they had a campaign contribution. they be doing it because they believed that was the right thing and they would be spending far more about their time worrying about their significant national problems rather than the majority of their time fund raising, which is what they do now. >> kim, what do we know about donors in terms of outside money? presumably there's a lot of people of wealth who are making big contributions. the two we know anything the geographic distribution? >> texas. >> all right. so there is a heavy weighting? >> , is for the billionaires are. if they live in texas, you've got a lot of money coming from new york, particularly folks who used to be with pain capital or

so i would be in capital. folks from wall street has contributed heavily to the super pac supporting romney. folks from hollywood have contributed significantly to the super box supporting obama, but she's got your billionaires of texas. bob peary who doesn't ever talk to anybody is given a lot of money. harold simmons is given a lot of money. foster freeze has given a lot of money. and of course there's the elephant in the room they are, what should sheldon abelson who's giving the companies $70 million to various super pacs, supporting romney and earlier supporting gingrich. so that's a lot of money. and that is a huge gamble to make. you have to wonder at the end of this, whether folks fail like

they deserve something for all that money. i don't know. that's the money we know about. >> remembers sheldon abelson telling the press all he wanted was a lock at the white house chanukah party. >> yeah, that doesn't sound so bad. >> foreign corrupt practices act investigation. in china regarding some gambling issues. he's also been very vocal about positions he takes for israel and wants to see a candidate who takes exactly those physicians and you can expect he will want to return on its investment. >> real quick, one thing is i think it's interesting you are not any super pac donations because they have to say who their donors are. you're not seeing the level of corporations coming in and giving money that everyone thought would be given money. there's a lot of a lot of speculation and nick was involved in a great story the times did about the fact they are going through the c4 with groups like aetna accidentally

leaked the fact they've given money to the chamber of commerce, which is a trade association, which melanie was mentioning earlier. so you are not seeing the money coming from the corporations reported. it is most likely, at least according to experts coming into the anonymous menu. >> i wanted to bring up something you wrote about one of your articles that said the democratic super pac money is coming from trial lawyers, unions and hollywood. i thought that was the next summary. >> all answered very quickly. rich, white, man, new york, texas, california, kansas and las vegas. that's where the money is coming from. >> there you go. >> i spent which you much time looking at fec reports. and actually, one thing about the ads and again, doesn't tell

us about the tax exempt groups, and there is evidence that is the main conduit for corporate money and not super pacs. the super pacs have made a country more and more diverse have more of the money in politics that we know about come from a smaller number of very wealthy, mostly male, almost entirely white people and a few states of courses or traditional states where fundraising happens. so it's not a huge surprise, that it's basically as you said marcie think we were the billionaires are. it is kind of astounding when you start to break down just how few people are financing in both parties all of these outfits. and again on the democratic side against liberal wall street people, movie stars, trial lawyers who made tens of millions of dollars in a tobacco settlement is basically where

the money comes from and what we caught the nascent democratic super pac conglomerate, which is still getting up to speed relative to the republican. >> i want to remind folks shortly we will start collecting questions if you've written questions, will start collecting those. so i'm going to go back to you, brad. when you think about the fact that our democracy is predicated on one level, one person, one though, but on the other level, money is considered speech. are those two incompatible missions of our democracy? >> i don't think they are. i think first or need to go back and pull back on hyperbole. it's been suggested to members of congress and the majority of their time fund raising. that's not true. i know of no study that shows they spent even close to the majority of the time fund raising. all these people expect something in return, but we largely know that's not true.

the vast majority of givers donate to candidates who agree with the donor. that's where the donor gives to them and basically all they expect in return is by and large good government. we do have research and studies that have gone into that. there is also the question of corporate money, which pointed out everybody that super pacs to be funded by corporate money. it is clearly not the case. there's not a strong reason to think it's mostly corporate money, especially not large publicly traded corporations going into other kinds of groups that fund this activity. what we have to ultimately is a couple of questions. there's one question, which is it good or bad to have this more open deregulated system, or upon complete again. the second question, the one kim drags us back to admit a little bit is how much do we need more disclosure because some of this activity is not disclosed. with that in mind, i will note

that organizations have been able to participate in politics and they've never had to disclose their donors. i take as my starting point in my presumption that the government or have a darn good reason before it starts keeping a database in which it catalogs or political activity and keeps track of who we support and who we talk to about politics. on the other hand, the government can overcome that. it is not controversial in the supreme court that money contributes to speech. money for the purpose of eliminating speech involves the first amendment. pretty much all the justices decide on the court in the last 30 years have agreed with that point. the question is, is there a compelling enough interest to overcome that first amendment right? said that is the one question in the second is, how much of that should be disclosed? we haven't gotten to that very much. >> i think is a great place for us to go. just a reminder that bradley

smith is the cofounder of the center for negative politics and a fan of affinity regulation of political money. and melanie sloan is executive director of citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington. the melanie, i'm going to turn back to you. i want to get to the disclosure question, but i also want to approach the question of whether there is a fundamental mismatch between one person, one vote and money is free speech. >> i wouldn't agree that money equals speech. i think that they are separate and distinct. i think there's a lot of questions about the disclosure issues and all people who used to be in favor of disclosure in fact are no longer a very disclosure. yet people like senator mitch mcconnell, senate majority leader is that really we should be able to contribute what we want, but disclosed at all. everybody is anti-disclosure is part of the republican mantra to the anti-disclosure, a bill to

require more disclosure has gone through congress twice and failed, called the disclose that, so there's really not going to be disclosure anytime too soon about the money going into the campaign on. when brad says he thinks the government is a great reason to catalog, keep the data base your campaign contributions, they been keeping up for many, many years already. so now what we have is a situation where $2000 donation is catalogs, panache or $10 million donation to a 501-c4. there's a real problem of the disclosure appeared small donors, but not the biggest donors who have the most influence. when we talk about obviously there is one big difference from citizens donate that's one thing. corporations aren't doing it because they want the

government. when a corporation is making a nearly $4 million contribution to the american action network, they do it because they have an agenda, because it's a business decision and expect to get something out of it. we only found out by mistake. i've not found a paper with the insurance commissioners by accident. he was supposed to be revealing my being donation from someone in it for a reported their donations to the american action network and chamber of commerce. so we got this window. the first time we found out what corporation is donating and you can imagine it as i did they're unlikely to be alone. the american action network is hundreds of millions of dollars. there's crossers gps coming home at new groups. you can imagine there's corporate money going in and we as americans have no idea what this corporations are expecting for those contributions. >> we wouldn't have any idea if we knew either. and luscious step back a little

bit. corporations spend about 100 times as much money every year on charitable contributions as they do on all political spending combined, right? what to expect from a? what do they get from that? with their agenda? we don't worry about it. corporations give away a lot of money simply because they think about make a better society or get better long-term policy results. i have to say a word or two about this. this gets bipartisan he said. i'm pretty sure in no mitch mcconnell's decision not disclosure a lot better than melanie does. nobody in the republican party has proposed legislation rolling back any disclosure laws at the federal level. the question has always been, what disclosure should be required? what we have not required as disclosure of contributions that go directly to candidates or parties or spending that

directly advocates the election or defeat of a candidate. we have never before required a 501 c. four nonprofit at the naacp, rifle club to disclose all of its donors, all of them because some donors have the money used or maybe no donor wanted it used to run political ads that the groups also supportive of their mission. in fact, we thought many long, hard court battles throughout the civil rights era to make sure these groups would not have to disclose their donors to people. so melanie is right that it's odd we are requiring disclosure of little amounts given to candidates, but not large amounts not given to candidates. i am open to adjustments on those. there can be a lot of changes made in offense, but i think there is a fundamental difference there. there has not been a retreat for disclosure. we have never had before in our

countries history, tracking people's political activity. he might jump in there. one of the thing that comes to mind is the game has changed, so has the ability to turn around disclosure itemization quickly. that's one of the things that's happening. >> iowa to talk about the irs. i like talking about boring subjects attempt to beat me down like a path that could never get out of. it is supposed to regulate social welfare nonprofits. social welfare nonprofits, 501-c4 groups come in the whole idea of dark money, their primary purpose is supposed to be social welfare, right? they're supposed to be helping the community at large. not a specific group of people, not a political group of people. but she's got these groups out there that are not even required to get recognized by the irs

before they start operating. so bush should have sent citizens united are pop-up groups. they come along, call themselves something like commission on hope, growth and opportunity. on the other hand companies by citizens for strength and security action fund, which is a liberal group. they will come along, although the commission did apply to the irs and global groups often won't apply to the irs at all. they will start by spending money, spin through the election and then they will fold. i will fold right after the election and tax returns are due a year or so after the election at the very earliest. you don't have a sense of what they were doing until then. they have allowed these groups to allow them to say to the irs, now, we're not going to spend any money in politics whatsoever in turnaround in some cases can even spend money to standdown

political the same day they are billing application saying no, we're not going to do any politics whatsoever. that is a discussion we have to have about these groups. not groups at the naacp, that is basically operating more like a c3 are right to life. groups have traditionally wanted to have a little bit of a political voice or demott being an artist doing more of a social welfare role. but what you do about a group that sets up a website and says we were here for free enterprise , runs a couple of new stories on its website, spent our most of its money seemingly on politics and then folds. and then you start a new one the next time around. literally, with citizen for action fund, that was a 501-c4 that ran. it folded in 2008, 2011, you had a new start of the citizens for

strength and security fund as opposed to the action fund. uses the same cut and placed clipart from the first script from the same sort of issues and is running the same man whom we have no idea who's giving them money. mark my words, by 2013, it will fold and then you have a new one in 2014. >> what is that like to try to report on this territory that's kind of like los angeles during earthquakes season and things just keep moving around? >> is pretty fun, but it's also pretty frustrating. it is always just a practical task of reporting on what we call dark money here. you are reporting about huge sums of money with almost no idea where it comes from, what

kind of minimal ability sometimes to engage the people in charge of the money and only a partial knowledge of how it's being spent, which you can pick up sometimes by tracking advertising buys. what it's really brought home and i think about a lot of the fundamental issues of speech in regulation that at all raises. when they were kind of dancing around here is we have an irs couches basically a taxing agency that is enforcing. you have groups that operate up blind the grassroots lobbying and issue advocacy, which is more obviously election

oriented. and it raises a real challenge a thing for advocates of regulation because you begin to have to decide and classify different kinds of speech cannot regulate it caused a political expenditure, how is it different from an issue that, how is it different from trying to back somebody. i don't think it's impossible to do, but the sense i get from reporting on it and the challenge of it really is to try to describe clearly for readers what is happening, what things really are as opposed to what they are called technically. i really wish we had a catchy term for tax-exempt educational group. via things like like semi-super pac or something that would allow us to shorthanded. it would probably help a lot in the educational aspect. for readers. >> they get five o. one c. four and were out of here.

editors don't want to see. >> the acronym would be excited. >> so what i see as we are entering a universe, where brad probably thinks this is positive, where more money is flying outside of party institutions, outside of candidates. more of a controlled by constellations of political operatives and donors with ties to different candidates. and that is where i see us going. i think it is a consultant strain. i mean, it is like a gold mine for political consultants. you can make so much money you don't have to answer to candidates or candidates spouses or travel anywhere. they just sit in a control room in alexandria, cut ads, collect checks, read polls. it's a great job and it is the future of politics.

>> so we have a whole bunch of questions here and also people on twitter, you can use the hash tag, investigate this. i'll be checking for any questions. there are several questions that just get down to basics. i don't know who wants to pick this up, but just explain for the record what nonprofits can do, what super pacs can do. maybe there's a place that should point people an overview. >> said cancer charities. you can take a tax reduction and they are not supposed to do politics. they might run in issue advocacy here and there, but they're not allowed to advocate the election or defeat of a particular candidate. that doesn't mean that they can't have a partner group, which is a social welfare nonprofit they were talking about. the rules on what those groups

can do in politics. they can lobby and make a new political advertising, but their primary purpose is supposed to be social welfare. the irs is never defined what that means. i mean, a lot of these groups say this means we can spend up to 49% of our money we raised on political ads, but the irs hasn't said whether that's the case or not. the irs has facts and circumstance test for pretty much everything. >> some of these groups spent more than that. the american actions at 66% on political ads. >> it defines how you define a political ad. so it gets very confusing. as far as what a super pac is allowed to spend its money on, a super pac is under the irs 527 code. you heard nick mentioned 527 earlier. this means they can spend all their money on ads. that is what they do. they have to raise their money

and report what they raised and had taken it from. those are the main difference is. >> there is a c. six. >> are you so question asked. >> let me add a couple other. >> but me had a couple of legal points out that our -- a super pac has to spend its money independently from the candidate. now that means they can't confer and asked them to do it. it does not suggest to people doing a bone to what the candidate is doing. it doesn't take much brains to what the candidates are doing. if other schedules to more per contributors, advised, but they can't actually talk and collaborate in that fashion. >> technically jon stewart and stephen colbert. >> i think that was illegal. if i was on fec, i would say

that as a violation. when they sat their present a talk together letter to one another, i would say that's a violation of the law. there were two other players worth mentioning that are minor players, but what is a super pac as opposed to good old fashion plain old pack? a good old-fashioned pack, which has been around forever, a longtime, continued contributions. you're limited how much you can give any pack a new independent expenditures so we can commonness as to be more common, give money to agree to candidate campaigns. the one final players will be my college in eric 527. as kim said, a super pac is a form of 527. a generic 527 in 2004 is a group that sends money on issue ads that sound a lot like political ads, but technically don't advocate the election to receive a candidate. the reason i mention that is that if groups are not defined

as 501-c4, they wouldn't have to go out of business. you just become 520 sevens. it does mean they would report donors to irs. >> i think we have officially lost the audience. >> it's important to understand. >> i am serious about it and i do also this is a conundrum we face. while serious about it. people don't come out in manhattan on a weeknight, school night to hear things they don't care about. everyone here cares about it, but it's so hard to explain. if you were doing a great job, but we do have limitations. this is a question i don't know whether we'll be able to answer, but perhaps. give us your best estimate of the total amount of never reported contributions that will be spent this year on house and senate campaigns by public employee unions, big fat, big insurance, big coal or oil, law

firms and five, big finance. >> i have no idea. >> is a solid point we don't know. >> hundreds of millions of dollars. >> we can use the back of the envelope peer we know, or it has been reported there's kind of a network of donors associated with the coat writers that are reportedly going to raise and spend about $400 million this cycle. in all federal races, through a variety of groups, we know that america's crossroads in tax-exempt affiliate, crossers gps will spend about 300 million. i've seen some figures for this and again it goes to earlier questions. so much with the unions do is not advertising, but mobilization. they do spend money through super pacs. they may spend money for c4. i'm not sure about that.

but again, the reason we call it dark money is because it's dark and we have no idea how much a neutral stand. >> another one. how can we straighten out the ambiguities of the c4? >> in my view we could do a lot to change the laws. first i think we should simply restrict political spending. the point was initially to be a companion and generally engage in some kind of lobbying. if you want to engage in political activities cowlitz requires someone to start a super pac, with a standard that can be disclosed. stephen just prohibited from engaging in political spending at all. >> another question basically asks, how do we know if there's quick pro-quote? the question is are the reports or studies and which media companies receive the most money and how those companies are politically connected. i'm

guessing that it means that media companies receive money but they are spending money. >> it could be for the ads. i'm confused about the question. >> i am a little bit, too. [inaudible] we have no idea if there's a quick pro-quote going on. tv stations get a lot of money for these ads. in fact -- [inaudible] >> there is one example which is the money i think flows to local tv stations there are big local tv stations and conglomerate local tv stations. but those tv stations make a huge amount of money from political ads. it is a great business probably because they can essentially

inflate prices, make up quotes, bid prices effectively because no one knows what the real price people are paying our and they are resisting a proposal and can can describe better than i can. >> this is the whole idea what i was talking about in the beginning. the tv stations and broadcasters were some of the folks saying it's too burdensome to put this stuff online. it's too burdensome to make this public. before was required to be put upon mind to find out what groups are spending of the candidates are spending, the actual amount of tv stations, you have to go there in person paul records yourself. that is incredibly burdened found as a citizen in this country. so you've got that and you've got the fact these ads run by candidates has a certain amount of money those costs. you can't inflate those ads. these outside groups say it now

cost us, now this comment and in certain markets like ohio and florida i don't think they're any ads running that are from these outside groups. you've got wal-mart saying we're not going to build a spend money on holiday advertising until after the election in certain areas. so whatever the quick pro-quote you can't say for certain one way or the other. >> let me go back to you, brad because you are someone who's gotten to serve in a commissioner in the fec. what came out for you that may influence your decision to start the group you may now run? >> the biggest thing that came up to me is nobody's doing anything that. we would see many cases in some of them would be clearly

violations of the law and someone not be violations of the law. senate that would be close. in virtually none of those cases, not none. very, very few was anybody actually trying to do anything but i think anybody in this room would consider bad. the vast majority of the violations found were basically accidental violations were things that don't have much impact. people who contribute more than they thought. a person who wrote a check of his corporate account in the campaign didn't recognize it as such and took it in. the other thing is the incredible burden on true grassroots political activity. one it's become so centered in washington now is because it's very, very hard for grassroots groups to do anything because the first thing you got to do. figure 520 sevens, if you've got to hire the lawyer from an accountant and somebody knows

how there's a whole cadre who make their living doing that. there's small campaign for grassroots activity not a minimum, i hope we can push vastly up with the sort of reporting thresholds and disclosure thresholds see people get washed out of the system. >> are small actors being penalized by regulations? >> nobody wants to penalize them matter how egregious their violations. there's plenty of violations of those feeble mr. would think are pretty darn egregious. people engage in conduit contribution schemes. basically if you make it in the name of somebody else. if you are coercing employees, something we see routinely. those are the kinds of things illegal on the fcc hasn't wanted to take a stand on. peer john mccain calls that the low agency that can't. part of this problem is the

structure. the six commissioners, you need four votes to do anything. you can't do anything. either the six commissioners set despite expired terms and a couple of band have been very blatant about their refusal to enforce campaign finance laws. and one of them, a guy named tom mcgann has said he believes his shop to help republicans in that position. president obama can be blamed and held accountable for his failure to nominate anybody new to the commission. he tried once and that person did get through the senate, so he didn't try again. he really cares about campaign finance regulation, and has done very little. >> i'm walking on stage if i don't get to respond to this. >> you can respond, but out of respect for the audience of a lot more questions.

>> the mere fact that crew violates the law doesn't mean that it does. the fec is the agency company enforcement agency with presidential appointees that determine what the regulations are in an something violates the law. anyone can file a complaint. that doesn't mean someone violated the law and i hope we're all glad that's the case. it's a complaint of saint the judge wrote for salon because you up against me. the fec does not deadlock frequently. it does about 3% or 4% of the time. a virtually never comes out. we could go on and on and on down almost every point. melanie, you just don't have a clue as to what goes on. that's a fact. you don't which are talking about. >> i would prefer not to go down the road to open warfare because there are more questions. >> i felt there was a very dishonest attack that attempts to mislead the audience. you've got to understand if you're not going to give me a lot of time, you just have to

let me say, she doesn't know she's talking about and not pay. they are, the is at. >> we are going to move ahead to other questions. these two questions seem to me to be interrelated. one is for the audience at the first is the audience on the second from twitter. the first line of questioning is our citizens united and super pacs not late in violations of the 14th amendment? how to regular voters have equal protection law against people like foster freeze or shall it'll send? the question from twitter was how can this be called a democracy when a presidential candidate must raise a billion dollars to win an election? now i think these are meta-questions to individual legal regulations, but this is what is on people's minds. any thoughts? >> i mean, they are value judgments. it is difficult to come in and say, this is what i think about this. it doesn't matter what i think.

it doesn't matter what most of us think about citizens united because that's the law of the landmass where we live right now. it's almost like you just have to figure out a way forward and talk about issues of disclosure more than anything else. >> i would note he doesn't have to raise a billion dollars. no one is putting a gun to his head. in fact, it was obama in 2082 chose to raise recorders by the billions of dollars. he said i can crush john mccain if i don't take public financing in iowa when. he refers to splash and of course you guys are aware that until this election, every year for the past couple of decades, after each party nominated, they would get a bunch of taxpayer money and in return agreed not to spend other money to candidates. is that i'm done with that.

i'm not one to take that money. i'm going to raise my own money. both candidates are off to the race. as in meaning the one that both candidates made. they don't actually have to raise any money for the general election if they don't want to. >> dollars are not stuffed into ballot boxes. dollars are used to try to persuade people to vote and that sounds a lot like speech when we think about it that way. ultimately, we have voters have to make decisions about what we are going to do. one of the concerns we have is that too many voters essentially won't take that seriously, but there's passive receptors of the things they hear the television. there may be some truth to that. but if ultimately, we're really giving up on democracy 18. we have to assume voters will do the job. again, there's good evidence that spending as to voter knowledge, increases voter awareness and interest in the

election. and so i think on the end, it is not contrary to democracy to say we're going to let people speak as much as they can speak any more than the issues are problematic here, but ultimately the other problematic issue is do you want the government stepping in and deciding who's raise too much money, whose recent little, who said the wrong things and that is a very dangerous thing to do. ..

>> on the question of foreign entities there are laws prohibiting individuals from donating. they are not allowed to be

involved in the electro process. dow there are a multinational corporations. that you can question if the company does ab offices here are they making contributions related to the home interest of another country? there are legitimate concerns with governments could influence our reflections. >> las vegas sands corporation publicly e*trade did 97 percent comes from a cow that is said territory of tied up.

he makes his money off the company that is a huge shareholder. he is an american shareholder. what is that? and did the age where borders have less meaning, i can read draw that distinction as we intended to? >> you have no idea. seafloor house to say who they get their money from the sunny day gave we've $500,000. you don't have to tell the irs anything other than

that. >> what are the missing links what don't you know, that you wish you did? where does the story go next? >> we do not know the donors. [laughter] i spend my days people laugh they will talk but it you call and you call nobody calls me back. i have never felt so rejected. give me your tax forms. you are required by law. no. you are forced into a situation that somebody didn't comment. it is difficult to get people to pay attention.

with journalism you will read the 5,000 words story if you could hang it on those who will talk to you. >> that is why they will not. that is not the audience they don't want to have their name they can own the influence your vote so it works out well for them. >> you published the email think you but know think you from one of the big donors. how do deal with that when

you cannot go back? >> you do the best you can. i like to hear what i am writing about. in this good journalism. talking to reporters can be a pain in the ass. but a huge information been gulf about priorities a small group of people playing become more influential role in politics as a journalist that is frustrating. i would be able to explain it to the readers better. >> going back to their

virtual middle school students somewhere depressed about the state of politics how do we've proceed? to take the comprehensive look with dark money but en people say it is about 1% and one vote to free-speech means different things to different people how we framed them moving forward? >> america it is about change. i would anchor rage middle calls -- metals posted is to get involved come out and

change it i help you vote and get involved and work for the change cahal we should have. >> >> said of your allowance by a lifetime subscription to the at "new york times". [laughter] you'll be better informed. [laughter] >> we've pay a lot of attention to the tax forms on-line. it is incumbent to educate yourself about these groups use it i did not know that. it is incumbent not to be lazy to research said vote you will cast.

that is what we do get to do and we forget. >> i hope people walk away think this is more complex. fourth -- with more realistic situations get pass the slogans and the card if the four year experiment with regulation has worked. if not, then why not. people should be more informed so i a will plug our website melanie did not say her but site but to there is no substitute for the people who are watching this today. >> bad is it for our

conversation part of the talks going down talk gain with melodies loan, from "the new york times" and next to him tim barker and we have been talking about the rise is of dark monday 2012 and 2016. thank you. [applause]

>> eisenhower would never tell anybody. why is this important? win nuclear weapons were pretty new nobody ever knew if he was serious or if he meant it.

you have to be credible. i was fascinated. the use of nuclear weapons what could be a greater command decision? he ran the allied invasion but now has a greater level of responsibility. not just one or two but a whole arsenal will be used these or not? the use them as a tool basically 82 avoid any war.

>> i the will be started. will come to the "ms." magazine 40th anniversary luncheon. [cheers and applause] we are celebrating party years of reporting and rebelling and truth telling. i and the executive editor and executive vice president of the feminist majority foundation. [applause]

i want to welcome the mini women's rights leaders that have joined us here today as well as sisters of the feminist media as well as those in the mainstream media. my pleasure to introduce today lower bassett from having to post -- "huffington post". the co-founder and executive director from the consortium's center. [applause] and strategic advisor pro eleanor is on my left. [applause] the political contributing editor even with the mclaughlin group. carol jenkins and the

award-winning former television news anchor correspondent and with the women's media center. [applause] lisa matthews of planning editor for the associated press broadcast. [applause] longer introductions later president of the feminist majority foundation. [applause] and the publisher of "ms." magazine and gloria steinem

co-founder of "ms." magazine [cheers and applause] of light to salute they keep people. associate editor, but local editor, our design design, publishing coordinator, and directing the classroom program director. [applause] for more about "ms." magazine i urge our television audience go to "ms." magazine.com to be a part of this incredible movement that is so critical at this time in our live.

40 years ago when the first issue hit the newsstand harry reasoner equipped he gives it six months before they run out of things to say a lack of 40 years "ms." magazine is making history pushing forward to when inspired a movement that has fervor change our world. it has played a role in reproductive rights, against violence, rape, equal pay pay, educational opportunity, so writes, lg bt rate, and chiding the light from the powerful economic interests that profit to their religious fundamentalist to maintaining their patriarch. we celebrate these 40 years from the very first issue with rehab add an abortion

petition signed by profit with been from when they avert illegal to 1977 cover story of sexual harassment on the job, 15 years before anita hill. to 1980 groundbreaking reporting finding genital mutilation as an international crime. and the look inside there gender apartheid regime that most had not noticed. through the 2011 cover story rape is rape that we reveal the fbi 80 year-old definition under accounts by hundreds of thousands every year. that was part of a larger feminist campaign to kick

off a firestorm resulting in more than 140,000 letters in the mails to the fbi and attorney-general demanding the definition be changed. it was. we succeeded. [applause] "ms." magazine is always ahead of the mainstream news of coverage of women and girls. it for sounded the alarm about the war on within eight years ago in 2004. you will recognize me the inaugural cover wonder woman fighting for peace and justice. for the 40th anniversary issue we decided to feature the iconic super hero on the streets of washington d.c. with women marching to stop the attack on a women's rights to vote as if your

life depends on it. [applause] wonder woman is the enduring symbol of women's power we could think of no better way for women to use the power of their votes in the coming election. you will hear about that today and you can ask questions to fill out the cards on your table the staff low be around shortly to collect them. i would like to introduce anushay hossain the global quote macbeth program director. [applause] >> i am so honored to be here to be this close to gloria steinem.

[laughter] when i was a little girl might english teacher gave me my first copy of "ms." magazine it has always been synonymous. [applause] says the celebrate 40 years also those activist among us today. last december the united nations and declared october 11 as the international day of the girl child. with the unique rights and challenges they face around the world. this year focus is on ending child marriage. one that of three women are first married before they reach the age of 18. 1/3 before the age of 15. it is a violation of the fundamental human rights

tiled marry a draw owe of hurt childhood and increases risk to be a victim of abuse and jeopardize as her health. complications from two her the pregnancy or childbirth is a leading cause of death under 19. child marriage ends of girls' education when she can stay in school to avoid being married early to build a better life. on this first international day of the girl child we must redouble the commitment to ensure all countries and force was to increase the minimum age of marriage stage 18. and demand all countries mandate for all secondary education that dead gender gap is eliminated. and their root cause mope

value of gross the and did here and around the world. we must not forget those who risk their lives like the 14 year-old girl. [applause] i cannot get over it. shot in ahead by the taliban extremist on her way home from school. because she stood up to the taliban when they took over and ordered all girls' schools to be closed down. she revealed that this was like her writings with life under the brutal control that education end would prevail. we cannot let her or her courageous action be forgot 10. or those in afghanistan to

face threats from the taliban as they go to school. the combined forces of the eight year-old organization dedicated to a dancing rates around the world. learning high school and medical students learn about human rights with schools and communities to ensure every girl has access to quality education. to insure grows are seen and heard, today with the international partners calls school assemblies, even a flash mobs that grand central station for

challenges girls face around the world. and said teacher advisers are here. please stand up where you are sitting. from thomas jefferson high school for science and technology. >> georgetown day school school, albert einstein high-school. [applause] schools without walls. [applause] we applaud your work. on behalf of gross and human-rights around the world. thank you. >> i would like to give a shout out to him recanted and the united nations population fund yesterday pledged nearly 50 million for the campaign to end child marriage.

[applause] >> now i had the privilege of working within 25 years one of the contemporary strategist one of the most recognized leaders one of the first to define the gender gap that existed and this but keefe course ever cents. [applause] >> it is in is quite a year

for us also the 43 anniversary of the feminist majority and cathy always moderates but is never introduced but kathy has really kept to this going in some anyways. now the executive editor of "ms." magazine. she gets the gift. she gets the story to make sure we're not always relevant but ahead of our time everything from rape is rape campaign to show what the army of god is. we contribute to your hard

work for your groundbreaking work. thank you for everything you do. [applause] a lot of people say the magazine is the 20th century but this started in the 20th century and moving forward i believe bid is the greatest of times for us. we can now reach through social media about 2 billion people per year casey and read it the 140,000 letters produced social media on the cutting edge. and a digital edition up in the classroom.

we are now viewed and read worldwide. i love this new software like google analytics to see the lightbulb all over the place africa, pakistan, india, whi ch i never go we are everywhere. it sure beats having to distribute paper copies ever. we can get the word out. not just a quarterly. a day the. we put out of th